Monthly Archives: August 2014

Astroworkers, welcome to PAX Update 0.14! This update will be on the floor at PAX today, but even if you can’t make it to Seattle you can enjoy the soups of our labors! This update adds more ingredients, more enemies, and some adjustments to research. We’ve also thrown in some nagging bugs.

Because of the large amount of changes in the current build, we recommend you delete your previous save data. You can delete your saved data from the planet select menu. With that said, let’s look at the new stuff!

Like a Boss

Nom Nom Galaxy is all about battling rival corporations for galactic domination of the soup market. Up to this point, your rivals have only sent small waves of alien mercs to disrupt your operation. Starting with this update, they’ll be bringing out the big guns! Or should we say, the big UFOs!

This behemoth will appear after you’ve launched a certain number of rockets. When your rivals feel like you’re getting a little too big for your britches, they’ll send over this ship to knock you down a few pegs. You’ll have to make some sacrifices to repel it!

Exploring Strange New Worlds

The ‘galaxy’ in Nom Nom Galaxy continues to expand. You’ll now be able to visit Iddil, a heavily forested planet, Unba,a water world, and the mountainous Pomelyk. Each planet will require it’s own strategy in order to build a successful factory. Gameplay for these planets is in development, so we’d love to get feedback from the community on them.

IDDIL

Iddil introduces new fruit bearing trees and spiny thorn plants. Neither can be moved easily, so you’ll have to plan your base around them.

UNBA

If you fancy a swim, Unba is your planet. With most of the stage area covered in water, you’ll have to create island bases in different places to expand your factory. The ever-important Oxyflower has the added benefit of repelling water, so you can use it to plant under the waves, or prevent water from entering your base.

POMELYK

The most challenging of the new stages is Pomelyk. The rocky planet offers few places to cultivate your ingredients and deposits of matter and discs are sparse, so you’ll have to maximize your management skills to expand.

Expanding Your Pallet

There are a few new flora to add to your recipe book now. We haven’t had proper trees in Nom Nom but that’s because we’ve only been exploring deserts and plains. Iddil is our first planet to introduce a forest biome.

The trees of Iddil bear delicious fruit, but are sturdy and can’t be chopped down. You’ll have to plan your factories around these trees to harvest them. The trees will die in winter, so stock up on fruit for the cold season.

Needle Grass, like the trees of Iddil, is difficult to get rid of. It’s covered in thorns so punching it will only leave you with bloody gloves, and if you dig it up with your buzzsaw, the remaining bits will sprout as new plants. You’ll have to use other tools to take it out-but it’s rumored that beautiful flowers sometimes blossom on its thorny branches…

Nom Nom now has an uber tuber! Yams grow underground, and like the trees and Splinter Grass, are resistant to conventional harvesting. If you want to get to the goods, you’ll have to dig them up!

AdjustmentsThe following items have had their costs adjusted:

Hoverboard –
Increased Research key costs from 2 to 3
Increased the Gold cost from 100g to 1200g

Jack
Increased Research keys costs from 3 to 6
Increased Gold cost from 100g to 450g

Floppy disks should be easier to dig up now.

Mole enemies won’t be nearly as persistent in destroying your base and will disappear after paying you a visit.

Bug Fixes– Fixed an issue where you could create two offices on the Tutorial Stage
– Fixed a bug that allowed ivy and seaweed to grow in places they normally couldn’t

With only one week left we’re in the thick of getting Nom Nom Galaxy for PAX next week! I’m proud to say that Nom Nom Galaxy was selected to be part of the Indie MEGABOOTH once again this year. And as you’d expect from Q-Games, we’re bring some new flavors to the show! More details are coming in next week’s update, but as a hint I’ll just say that the Soup Co.’s empire is expanding into new regions, bringing new tastes and new dangers!

Last year we gave out fans, buttons, and Japanese Kit Kats to folks that stopped by to play Nom Nom. This year we’re upping the ante! We’ve got all of the above, plus some pretty sweet Nom Nom Galaxy t-shirts for the lucky folks!

Buku Buttons!

You’ll find Nom Nom Galaxy in the galactic corner of the Indie MEGABOOTH in booth #41 next to 17-Bit’s Galak-Z. Come join us in space!

Astroworkers! Ever since we first announced Nom Nom Galaxy (PixelJunk Inc. at the time), we’ve been bombarded with questions about our decision to bring a PixelJunk title to Steam before the our usual home, PlayStation. From the beginning of development we’ve wanted Nom Nom Galaxy to be on as many platforms as possible, so it hurt our hearts each time we had to dodge that question. Because of the size of the Nom Nom Galaxy team, it wasn’t something that we could commit to with the game still far from done on Steam. But for the past few months, we’ve been working with Double Eleven on make all of our dreams come true. We’re excited to finally announce that Nom Nom Galaxy will be coming to PlayStation 4 AND PlayStation Vita!

The Galactic Soup Alliance!

You may know Double Eleven from their work porting PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate and Shooter to Steam, and more recently the outstanding PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate for the PlayStation 4 and Vita. We’re now co-developing Nom Nom Galaxy with Double Eleven. The added man-power means that we’re going to not only bring Nom Nom Galaxy to PlayStation platforms, but we’ll be able to add even more content to the game! If you’re interested in seeing how Nom Nom Galaxy is shaping up on the PlayStation 4, you can check it out on the Gamescom and PAX show floors this month!

Terraforming in comfort in Cologne(Thanks to Gareth Wright from Double Eleven for the photo)

Fortune 500 in 5 minutes? No problem!(Thanks to Gareth Wright from Double Eleven for the photo)

We’ve also got a host of campaigns coming up this month for the frugal shopper. You can pick up PixelJunk Shooter on Steam now in this week’s Humble Bundle. There are more deals on the way, so keep tabs on @PixelJunkNews on Twitter and PixelJunk on Facebook!

Well, one month sure flies by! We”ve been hard at work on a multitude of things, both big and small, for this update. We”re also getting Nom Nom Galaxy ready for the big game shows coming up in August. We won”t get into where (or how) you”ll see Nom Nom Galaxy this month, but we”re pretty excited with the upcoming announcements! Look for more news next week! Because of the upcoming shows, we”re holding some stuff back for this update anda few other features aren”t completed. But that”s what Early Access is all about – testing, testing, and more testing. We”d love to hear your feedback on the changes, so please leave comments! With that said, let”s get to it!

Research

One issue that”s come up in feedback constantly has been Astroworker walking speed. In a game that requires you to ship your stock as quickly as possible, being a slow poke doesn”t bode well for future promotions. There were debates among the team on whether a speed boost the should be applied given to the Astroworker by default, as a research upgrade, or as a boost button. For now we”ve added a new research item to speed up the Astroworker by 30%, so please check it out and let us know what you think in the comments/forums. Limits on purchasing research at the end of each day have also been removed! Shopping spree! Finally, we”ve added a new structure, Storage, that allows you to store up to 6 ingredients! We think you”ll really appreciate it when you see what else is coming…

Removed the limit on the number of research upgraded you can purchase at the end of each day

New Astro-boots research available! Increase the online slots speed of your Astroworker by 30%!

Added Storage to research

Environment

In order to accommodate some of the new and more varied environments we”re working on, we”ve changed the way that oxygen works with water on the planets. Mon Cala, anyone?

Oxygen will now deplete twice as fast when under water.

Oxygen pockets can now be created underwater. These pockets will prevent water from entering, allowing you to expand your base underwater.

UI Changes

The planet select has been revamped to give you that universal flavor!

On the select rival screen before returning to a planet you”ve previously gotten 100% market share, the following information has been adjusted.

Total days will now accurately report previous play sessions

Enemies defeated will be cumulative for all play sessions

Fixed bug where screenshots of previous play sessions were being overwritten

You now find more information about rival corporations at the rival selection screen before starting a planet.

Controls

We”ve moved from the Maintenance Menu button for keyboard and mouse controls to the CTRL key.

Tutorial changes

With Nom Nom Galaxy heading to show floors this month, we”re shoring up some of the tutorials. This will be tweaked up until the last minute, so we”re looking for feedback from the community on how to improve the tutorials. What did you find difficult to understand when you started playing?

Game hints will now remain on the screen longer

Major hints during the tutorial will now pause the game

Testing

The following features are still being implemented and may be have bugs.

Astroworkers can now reset their base at the planet selection screen by pressing “Y” button on the controller, or “R” on the keyboard.

You can now build a second office on planets you return to after beating a rival with 100% market share. Currently, this is only working on Egon.

Seasons

We”ve begun testing for seasons, and winter is coming! The seasons are currently on a 15 minute cycle and only switch between summer and winter. Also, the winter assets are still being completed so you”ll only see a blue filter and some icy tiles for now.

Winter effects-Grass, Sunflower, and Ivy will die, making it impossible to grow or harvest them.
-Plants will not grow or spread seeds during winter.
-Animal nests shrivel up, and animals don”t leave their nests

As you can see, winter is pretty harsh, so be sure to make good use of the new technology!